


In the Weeds

by eisenbuns



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, Character Death, Crime Scenes, Divorced Hermione Granger & Ron Weasley, F/F, Female Protagonist, Police Procedural, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eisenbuns/pseuds/eisenbuns
Summary: The child of a Death Eater must solve the murder of Harry Potter when he is struck down one week before his 39th birthday. Head Auror Pansy Parkinson tackles the homicide of the century, discovering allies in unlikely places.Canon-divergent, largely canon-compliant through the end of Deathly Hallows. Major character death. Pansy Parkinson/Hermione Granger.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Has it really been seven years? 
> 
> Seven years ago, I tried writing this story for the first time and published it here under the name 'Aberration'. I don't think I was ready to write it then. This year, I decided to revisit the idea. It's been kicking around in my brain for literal years, and I'm so excited to share it with you! I don't expect that many will want to read this, as it's somewhat niche interest, but if you do: thank you. I hope I can weave a mystery that will leave you satisfied once the whodunnit is done.
> 
> Many, many thanks to my critique partner Laura, a murderino and fellow writer who makes sure I'm answering the right questions in my drafts.

Pansy apparated just outside the tiny village of Godric's Hollow with a sharp crack, her official robes billowing around her. Dawn bathed the peaked rooftops in soft pink light. Her heels clicked on the cobblestone as she strode past still-darkened windows, the only sound to disturb the morning quiet. As she passed into the village proper, she felt the barrier of the anti-apparition charm envelop her like a second skin, a gentle hum hovering a millimeter above the surface. Even the birds could feel the disturbance and so stayed away, or else they had already passed along word of the unspeakable tragedy that had unfolded in the night. 

The Potter home sat nestled amongst the other houses, no grander and no shabbier than the rest. A well-kept front lawn greeted Pansy as she followed a charming, uneven brick walkway up to the front door. Once, Pansy might have scoffed at the idea of Potter having a picket-fence life, but now she felt only the heaviest of stones deep in her gut.

No press yet, thank Merlin. A wonder the Prophet hadn't got wind of this yet, but then again, her best men were on the job. Plain robes, she'd specified, nothing flashy. No visible badges, nothing to clue in the neighbors that anything had gone awry. Until she had assessed the scene herself, she intended to keep Auror presence to a minimum. Discretion was only one of the qualities which earned her the title of Head Auror two years ago. Discretion, and a certain shrewdness that had made her something of an unpopular choice at the time of her promotion, but her Aurors didn't so much as grumble when she gave them an order now.

The front door opened to reveal Alistair Pike, one of her team members.

"Auror Parkinson," he greeted.

Pansy searched his face, round and generally cheerful, for some sign that the report was false. However, she found it sallow and serious, blue eyes dark in confirmation of what she already knew.

"Show me."

Pike stepped aside to allow her entry into the house. He closed the door firmly behind her. "Coroner hasn't shown yet," he said and stepped in front of her to lead. "Oggen found him, poor bloke. Came in with some breakthrough on the Rogers case, he said, and there he was, just—"

"Wilson should be here soon," Pansy interrupted. “I’d rather hear from the witness directly.” Her eyes fell upon a portrait on the wall. Potter, grinning ear-to-ear with his arm around his beaming bride, three smaller faces in front of them. Two boys, both with dark hair, like Potter's. One sported a grudging smile while the other radiated excitement, his arm linked through his sister’s. Pansy recognized the wild look in the young girl’s eyes. She resembled Weasley down to the explosion of freckles on her cheeks. Pansy’s stomach tightened and she turned her eyes away, eager to look anywhere else.

The sitting room looked just unkempt enough to be lived in. The throw pillows on the sofa needed a nice fluff. A horrid, disheveled quilt lay heaped on one end. Dozens of papers littered the coffee table, arranged in the sort of organized chaos she recognized as Harry’s usual state of work. As her eyes caught on a long-cold mug of tea sitting amid several dark rings, it became clear to her that Potter had been sleeping here.

"Just through here." Pike showed her through a doorway down the hall, into a large room that must have been Potter's study.

A warm fire illuminated the cold scene, crackling cheerfully away in contrast to the otherwise eerie silence. The mouth of the fireplace looked large enough to stand in. A sprinkling of powder on the mantel and hearth suggested the Potters used this as their primary Floo. Augustus Mulberry, a short law enforcement officer with a severe expression, stood near an oak desk just before the fire. He nodded his greeting.

Pansy only made brief eye contact with him; her eyes drawn instead to the figure seated at the desk. She recognized Potter's frame easily. He was one of her best, though she never would have admitted it to him. Now, she’d never get the chance. As soon as the thought flitted into her head, Pansy seized it and threw it sharply into a box. She could unpack that later — Potter deserved her at her best. She stepped forward, surveying the scene with a critical eye.

Harry had always been thin, even in school. Now, with his form slumped over his desk, he looked grotesquely so. His head rested on yet more papers creased beneath its heavy weight. She couldn't see his face.

"Nobody touches a thing until we get the coroner here," she barked. "And someone get an owl to Creevey."

"Creevey isn't on duty tonight, Miss," Pike started.

"Did I ask if he was on duty? Get him here. I want the shots from him.”

Admonished, Pike gave a short nod and exited the room.

She turned back to Potter and stepped carefully around the desk and around the bulky chair, which paid tribute to his Gryffindor heritage with upholstery in deep crimson accented with gold. Another chair had been pulled from somewhere else in the home, this one plain and wooden. It sat at an angle facing the desk beside Potter’s, unoccupied. She moved carefully so as not to disturb it and crouched to get a better look at the face she so dreaded seeing.

Potter's brilliant green eyes, now dull and glassy, stared straight ahead, fixed upon nothing. His glasses sat askew, one stem trapped beneath his cheek. From his open mouth leaked a frothy mixture of blood and stomach bile. More of the same spattered on the pages beneath. Pansy raised a hand to her mouth against the acrid smell wafting from the mess.

Just at that moment, the coroner arrived. Wilson blew into the room as he always did, a whirlwind of excuses and strange non-sequitur comments about the weather. He pulled out his wand, said a brief hello to the Aurors in the room, and waved it over Potter's motionless form as though this was just part of an inconvenient routine.

Mulberry stood ready with a quill and pad to write down the details.

"Poor bugger," Wilson tutted softly, as if Potter were a small toddler who'd scraped his knee. "Time of death, approximately half-two in the morning," he announced after a moment. He waved his wand again, waited in silence, and then said, "Stomach contents highly acidic, detecting evidence of a potion... I'll need to get him back to the lab to be sure, but from here I’d suggest a paralysis potion."

“We’re looking at a homicide.” It hadn’t really been a question, not given the circumstances, but hearing it said out loud sent a shockwave rippling through the room.

She only missed a beat before continuing, and she found her composure quickly. "Alright, people, we've got to move fast. I don’t need to remind you to be discreet. You know the Prophet - they could be in bloody Antarctica and still know if a Kneazle scratched its bum back home. Wilson, get Pot-" she faltered. "Get the body to the lab as soon as Creevey gets the shots. Mulberry, have you interviewed the witness?"

"Archer's taking care of that in the kitch'n," he said and looked up from his pad.

"Good. Is the family secured?"

"There's a note on the fridge, says the wife's away," Mulberry responded. He didn't so much deliver sentences as plod through them. "She gives an address."

"Get an owl to her, urgent. Have her come to my office, and don't, for Merlin's sake, mention what it's for."

Everything burst into motion when she finished speaking. Had the circumstances been different, she might have spent a moment appreciating the efficiency of it. Mulberry vanished to owl Potter's widow, and Wilson stepped back to allow Dennis Creevey, who'd just arrived, access to their newly minted crime scene. Creevey looked like he'd just rolled out of bed, his chestnut hair a flyaway mess and his eyes puffy with sleep. His field robes weren't done to code, but he had on gloves and his camera hung from his neck.

"Sorry," he mumbled, but stopped short in front of the desk. "Bloody hell." He ran his fingers through his already mussed hair. "It's true, then. I didn't believe it when I got the owl."

"Time is of the essence, Creevey," Pansy prompted and Dennis started snapping pictures. Shortly after, Pike returned from the sitting room to assist him in numbering each shot for evidence.

Satisfied that the scene was now in good hands, she moved from the room toward the back of the house, where a warm glow informed her the kitchen would be. Dawn crept through the windows, and even inside, Pansy could feel the outside world beginning to come alive, drawn out by the sun.

When she entered the Potters' cosy kitchen, the smell of cinnamon and cloves instantly enveloped her. A twiggy wreath hung upon the open kitchen door. Abruptly, Pansy's throat constricted. She was thrown for a moment back to Hogwarts, to Christmas there, when the Great Hall was filled with the smell of the holiday feast. She remembered Potter and Weasley sitting amongst the sparse remnants of the Gryffindors, and how much she'd loathed them at the time. She could hardly remember why. Because Draco loathed them, perhaps. Because they were Gryffindors. 

How stupid.

"Auror Parkinson!" Prudence Archer, who had been seated at the circular table in the middle of the room, stood abruptly. She glanced guilty at her cup of tea, then at the kettle still steaming beside the Potters’ kitchen fire. "I was just talking to James— I mean, Auror Oggen, about his account. Questioning him, I mean."

Pansy waved off the feeble lie. "I'd like to hear it again if you don't mind. The condensed version. What exactly were you doing here in the middle of the night, Oggen?"

James Oggen had been assigned as Potter's partner on the Rogers case. He looked more haggard than she'd ever seen him. Thick bags accented his bloodshot brown eyes. He'd been rubbing them. Even now, his hands couldn’t stay still. He thumbed at his chapped lips and cleared his throat.

"I came ‘round about four in the afternoon yesterday. Took the Floo. We'd been working nonstop the past two days—you know that, of course—and we'd finally decided to call it a night in the evening. Eight, I think. I went home, couldn’t sleep, so I started looking over a couple witnesses from the Rogers case and had a bit of a breakthrough. I tried firecalling, but Harry didn't…" he trailed off, his voice cracking.

Impatient as she was, Pansy was used to witnesses getting emotional during the retelling of their experiences. She waited for him to continue. Archer took a seat again. Her hand flickered toward Oggen’s but retracted at the last second to wrap around her mug of tea.

"Well," he started again, "he didn't answer. So, I threw some more powder in the fire and came through. I found him there, like that, with his eyes all open and all the blood and—" Again, Oggen stopped and pressed the heels of his hands deep into his eyes, rubbing furiously, as though he might expunge the image from his mind. "Sorry. He was dead. Cold. I checked him for a pulse, but he didn't have one, and that's when I owled you. I used some paper from the sitting room. And then I went around the house and made sure there wasn't… I just wanted to make sure Ginny and the kids were okay, and then I remembered he said that she was going out of town for her team, y'know, and the kids were staying with her mum and dad since we've been so wrapped up." Oggen took a deep breath, distressed again. "It was a week before his bloody birthday."

Pansy swallowed. "Thank you, Oggen. It’s helpful. And you've got all that written down?"

Archer nodded, and, satisfied, Pansy relieved Oggen from duty for the next week. She'd put someone else on the Rogers case, which couldn't benefit from an emotionally distressed officer any more than it could from a dead one.

From there, she ventured back into the study, where Creevey was finishing up his pictures. Wilson, in that magical way of his, had already removed the body.

Pansy checked her wristwatch and informed Pike that, as senior, he would oversee processing the scene from here. "I shouldn't need to emphasize the importance of thoroughness," she said. "Potter is—was— the most important wizard of our age, and a beacon of hope for a lot of people besides that. Today, the entirety of the wizarding world is going to wake up and learn that they’ve lost him." She glanced again at her watch. "I've got to get back to my office and meet with his wife."

When she at last stepped into her office after a long, monotonous lift ride to level two, Pansy paused with her back braced against the closed door. Her head throbbed, sending sharp needles of discomfort down through her jaw and into her teeth. Her joints ached, especially her ankles, and her back felt like someone had rolled it into knots. Her eyes lifted to the large mirror which lined the wall opposite her desk. Desperate eyes stared back at her, begging for a moment’s respite, but there was no time. She checked to make sure her dark hair, now streaked through with a prominent vein of silver, looked presentable in its severe bun. The lines around her mouth made it look like she was perpetually frowning, but there was nothing to be done about that. Hers was a face made for delivering bad news. She’d done it before, and she could do it now.

At her back, a knock sounded upon the door.

She briefly closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened the door to reveal a harassed and equally tired woman in her mid-thirties. The owl had clearly woken her. Pansy could see it in her mind’s eye, Weasley tossing on whatever clothes were readily available to get here. Mascara still clung to her thinning lashes, but otherwise she wore no makeup. Her hair remained bright as ever, that same brilliant shade of red, and in the firelight, it almost glowed.

"You wanted to see me, Parkinson?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy informs Ginny of Harry's death.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

The question caught Pansy off-guard. There was an order to these things. A witness to the conversation had to be present, Pansy needed to open with ‘I have some bad news to tell you,’ and at the very least, Potter’s wife ought to have been sitting down.

“Well?” Ginny Potter crossed her arms. She hadn’t yet taken the chair Pansy pulled out for her, nor had she accepted an offer of tea when she’d arrived. This left them at an impasse.

Pansy gripped the chair, bracing herself as though it could help her regain control of the situation. Not likely, if she rightly remembered the other woman’s iron will. “Please,” she entreated, “will you sit?”

Ginny eyed the chair with a wary expression before her shoulders sagged and she obliged. Despite the defiant jut of her chin, Pansy detected a waver at the corner of her mouth. This wasn’t an uncommon reaction; the need to get ahead of bad news, as though that might somehow prevent it from being true. Ginny, perhaps better than most, knew the danger associated with her husband’s profession. Likely she suspected what Pansy would tell her already, but there was protocol to follow and it existed for a reason. It protected people. They needed to be prepared, as much as anyone could be, to hear news like this. Ginny skipping steps now would only hurt her later, and there would be plenty of hurt to follow without allowing her to stumble here.

“Thank you.” Pansy nodded to the Magical Law Enforcement officer hovering outside the door, who then stepped in and closed it behind him. He took up his post against the wall, hands folded in front of him, while Pansy took a seat at her desk. The physical barrier between them aided the construction of a mental barrier as well. Right now, she couldn’t be Harry’s colleague and tenuous friend. Ginny didn’t need the Pansy who showed up to the Potters’ annual barbecue, reserved but amiable. She needed Pansy the Ministry representative. She needed Pansy to do her job.

“I’m sorry to have called you here so early,” she began. “I’m afraid I do have bad news, as you’ve already surmised.”

The line of Ginny’s mouth drew tighter. “He’s dead,” she said, beating Pansy to it a second time. “Just say it.” A tear traced a delicate track down her cheek.

“Yes,” Pansy conceded. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“The case he’s been working?”

“We aren’t sure.”

“What does that mean? Either it was, or it wasn’t.”

Pansy pinched the bridge of her nose where the morning’s tension had collected. “The investigation is ongoing. It’s currently unclear whether his death is related to the case he was working. He was found unresponsive by a member of our team this morning—”

“Found?”

Pansy’s hand fell away from her face as the crystal clarity of Ginny’s voice fractured on the word. “Yes.”

“He was alone.”

“Yes.” Though Ginny hadn’t made any accusations, Pansy’s eyes fell to her desk, her jaw working against the little flare of temper sparked by Ginny’s comment. Did she want Pansy to feel worse than she already did? Perhaps she wanted her to claim full responsibility, to say that it was all her fault for leaving Potter alone at all, and really, she ought to have given him a babysitter. Merlin forbid she assumed the man would be safe at home, of all places, or that a well-trained, senior Auror might be able to look after himself. Easier for Ginny to think it was Pansy’s fault than her own—

Beneath the desk, Pansy dug a nail into her own leg. _Stop._

She was getting defensive, and over nothing. Ginny hadn’t indicated that she thought any of this was her fault. Pansy took a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and pushed a box of tissues toward Ginny. She would have apologized a hundred times, if it would have helped soften the blow she’d dealt.

Some of the rigidity faded from Ginny’s posture. She leaned forward to pull out a tissue, but didn’t move to use it. Instead, she bunched it in her hands, took in a shaking breath and then released it, squeezing her eyes shut for the span of several more. When she opened them again, Pansy met her gaze with as much compassion and sincerity as she could scrape from her dwindling reserves. She knew the glazed look beginning to settle over the youngest of the Weasley clan. Shock had begun to displace the combativeness she’d worn when she arrived.

“I can have an officer escort you to your house,” Pansy prompted. “You can pick up clothes, personal items—whatever you might need for a night or two away. Oggen said your children were staying with your parents?”

Ginny nodded and passed a hand over her face, into her hair. “We were at a retreat. My team—we go every summer. Harry’s been so focused on his case, I thought…you know how he gets.”

“He is— _was_ —very dedicated.”

“Obsessed,” Ginny corrected with a thin smile. Her attention fell to the wadded tissue in her lap. “You know, you were never this nice in school.”

Pansy made a face. “Oh no,” she agreed, “I was a total twat at school.”

That, at least, they could agree upon. It even earned her a small laugh from Ginny before they continued.

She allowed herself to take a mental step back as she walked Ginny through what would come next: the escort to her home, resources available to her, her rights when the media would inevitably come sniffing after scraps of her grief. Ordinarily, Pansy would have waited to discuss media, but this situation was far from ordinary. The sooner Ginny knew what to expect, the better off she and her children would be.

Pansy was about to ask whether there was anyone she could owl on Ginny’s behalf when the door to her office flung open to admit a maelstrom of dark robes and wild, frizzy hair. Pansy’s desk chair scraped against the floor in her haste to stand.

“Granger,” she barked at once, “you can’t—”

“Ginny, oh, Ginny—It’s awful, I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner, but they wouldn’t let me inside.” She had already crossed the room to embrace Ginny, who flung her arms around Hermione’s neck. The numb composure she’d been clinging to in Pansy’s presence broke and she released a single sob that wracked her entire frame.

Pansy’s eyes darted immediately to Belby, the MLE officer who had been standing guard. She raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully. He looked bewildered by Hermione’s interruption. _Not me,_ his wide-eyed expression said. He started forward to intervene, but Pansy cut him off with a sharp jerk of her head.

“Granger,” Pansy said again, and Hermione met her gaze over Ginny’s shoulder with fierce determination.

“I’m not leaving.”

“I wasn’t—” Pansy began in a heated tone but paused to huff out her frustration. “No one’s asking you to leave,” she started again, more tempered this time. She came out from behind the desk and handed the requisite pamphlets on grief counseling and funerary assistance to Hermione, who took them with an appropriate amount of sheepishness.

“Oh,” Hermione uttered. Her nose rose into the air a bit, as if to say, _well, good_.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Merlin give her strength. “I was going to have an officer escort Ginny home. Someone ought to go with her.”

“Someone should have been here already,” Hermione said, fixing Pansy with a cold look.

“It’s protocol.” Heat flooded Pansy’s stomach. She knew she was in the right on this.

“It’s indecent.” Hermione’s voice rose. “I was here. I could have been here, not— Not going over court transcripts while you—"

She broke off as Ginny pulled back from her. “Hermione.” Ginny called the woman’s attention back to her with gentle insistence. “It’s okay. She’s only done her job.”

The two women looked at each other, strong wills battling back and forth for a moment via a shared gaze that could only be established through lifelong friendship. Hermione looked like she had more to say. Her shoulders rose briefly, then fell again in defeat.

“I’ll come home with you.” She gave Ginny’s shoulders a squeeze. “And firecall Ronald. Someone should, before he finds out another way.”

“No,” Ginny insisted with a ferocity that took Pansy by surprise. “You haven’t got to do that.”

“Ginny, please. If you’ll let me use your fire, Parkinson, I can catch him at the Leaky before he leaves for work.”

“Let me owl him,” Pansy said. “He’s on a case in Inverness.”

Hermione looked surprised to hear it. They’d been having trouble, Pansy knew. Ron was a private man but wore his emotions more openly than he liked to think. Months ago, he’d come to her office and asked specifically for work that would keep him traveling. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that things weren’t good at home.

A beat of silence passed between the three of them, and then, at once, everything resumed.

“Officer Belby will apparate you both to Godric’s Hollow. Let him know what you need from inside and he’ll fetch it for you.”

Pansy gestured for Belby to come forward, but something she’d said had perturbed Ginny, who looked at her with growing confusion. “We can’t go inside?”

Mentally, Pansy kicked herself for having forgotten. “No,” she said, “I’m afraid not. For the time being, the house is considered an active crime scene.”

Ginny’s hand moved to her mouth. She looked rooted to the spot, eyes wide. Pansy could almost see the barrage of information she’d delivered in this meeting finally registering in the woman’s mind, burying her beneath a rockslide. _I know_ , she wanted to tell her. What sort of world did they live in, that Harry Potter could be struck dead in his own home? Professionalism kept the thoughts confined to her own head.

“If you need anything today, you can reach me here. I’ll owl you with any updates as soon as we have them.” She didn’t know whether that would assure her, but Hermione stepped in then. She took Ginny by the arm and steered her toward the door. 

“Thank you, Parkinson,” Hermione said. She caught Pansy’s eyes and held them for a moment before allowing Belby to escort them both out.

Pansy closed the door behind them once they were safely on the other side and rested her aching head against the wood. It could have gone worse, she supposed. Better an interruption from Granger than one from a Daily Prophet reporter, but even as she assured herself of this, an unsettling question arose in the back of her mind.

While she had been informing Potter’s wife of his death, who the hell had told Granger?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New details emerge on the circumstances surrounding Harry's death.

Pansy spent the morning in an endless series of meetings, the first of which was with the Minister for Magic. Together with Pike, they went over the circumstances surrounding Potter’s death as they knew them to be, though without the official autopsy results, they could only give Minister Shacklebolt the barest bones of the case. She didn’t like the way Shacklebolt’s eyes bored into her during the conversation, eclipsing even his own grief over the news.

She knew what he was thinking. With Harry Potter dead, the world would seek answers where they were most obvious. Many Sacred 28 families still had Death Eater masks stored away in Gringotts vaults, or in basements deep in the bowels of their estates. It wasn’t a far leap—hardly even a hop—to Pansy’s father, still shackled in Azkaban after twenty years thanks to Lucius Malfoy’s ‘invaluable’ cooperation with law enforcement. Pansy did not shy away from the Minister’s gaze when he leveled it at her.

 _I am not my father_ , she reminded him with a lift of her chin. Perhaps if she thought it at him hard enough, he would come around and believe it.

He held open the door for them as they exited his office. When Pansy passed through, he caught her gaze and held it. “Get this right. The world will be watching everything you do, Auror Parkinson. You must be prepared for it.”

The world would be watching, but in a more immediate sense, the Minister himself would have his eyes trained on this investigation and its execution. If she didn’t perform to his expectation—to the public’s expectation—he wouldn’t hesitate to eject her from her position, and likely the Auror program at large. Pansy understood too well how politics worked. If it came down to protecting her or protecting the Ministry’s image, there would be no deliberation on the Minister’s part.

So, she nodded her affirmation. She would get it right.

The coroner joined her on the lift to Level Five, catching the doors just before they closed. She was returning upstairs after a quick and largely unsuccessful trip down to the canteen. ‘Lunch’ in this case consisted of coffee and a sad bagel leftover from breakfast and would be consumed at her desk upstairs. Not a real meal, but it was all Pansy could stomach. “I’m glad I caught you,” Wilson said, his breath huffing as the grate slid into place. He had clearly jogged to catch up to her.

Pansy ought to have been glad he’d caught up, too. It saved her a trip to the morgue and spared her the breath she would have wasted in harassing Wilson for his report. Not having it for the public relations meeting had been tricky. The Minister’s words stuck in her brain like briars, burrowing deeper with each expectant look cast her way. When she didn’t have answers, speculation festered. She couldn’t afford to be doubted. Not by the Minister, nor by the public—not by anyone.Still, a moment to herself did not seem like a monumental ask.

“You’ve got the results?” she asked. At Wilson’s grim nod, Pansy shoved her stale bagel into his hand. “Hold this.”

He passed her a manila folder. Thumbing it open, Pansy’s tired eyes scanned the report inside. A single page. The details of Potter’s death occupied just one side of one page, a tidy summary in Wilson’s precise penmanship. As she read, she did her best to put Potter’s face, and the stretching smiles of his young children, out of her mind.

She frowned at the report, skipping over complicated terminology she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around. Forensics wasn’t her strong suit—there was a reason she didn’t often venture into the labs. “What am I looking at here, Wilson?” When it came to homicides in their world, there wasn’t much need to get creative when a killing curse would suffice. This, however, was decidedly not the work of an Unforgivable.

“We found no indication of physical violence during the autopsy,” Wilson reported promptly, as though he’d been waiting for her to ask. “No sign at all that the victim fought back, though I don’t suppose he could’ve done. Gastric contents confirmed the presence of a potion to induce paralysis, as I suspected.”

The lift chimed and Pansy raised a hand. Wilson took the hint and fell silent, but when the doors slid open, they admitted a handful of airplane memos and closed again.

“So, we know he was paralyzed. We knew that already. Paralysis doesn’t kill a man,” she pointed out once they were moving again.

“It can,” Wilson corrected, “but it didn’t kill this one. We believe the cause of death was an injection of Acetic Acid into the bloodstream, which resulted in hemolysis and, eventually, adrenal failure.”

“English, please, Wilson.”

He looked annoyed but elaborated. “Acetic Acid can be highly corrosive in concentrated quantities. Introduce it to the bloodstream, and-“ Wilson demonstrated a small explosion with the hand not occupied by Pansy’s bagel. “Boom. Red blood cells gone, eaten from the inside out. Blood cells carry oxygen to the heart, which supplies blood to the rest of the organs, so without blood cells...” His wrist turned in a leading flourish.

“…The whole thing shuts down,” Pansy finished.

“Exactly.”

Once again, the lift came to a stop. This time, Pansy was due to get off. “Any chance this compound is extremely rare, only present in—I don’t know, a certain flower that only grows under the right moon phase?”

“It’s the primary component of household vinegar,” Wilson said, not without sympathy.

“Of course.” That would have been too easy. “We’ll interrogate every household in the country, then, shall we? That ought to narrow it down.” With a sigh, she closed the folder and took her bagel back. “Thank you. If you find anything else of interest-“

“You’ll be the first to know.” Wilson’s grim smile lingered in Pansy’s thoughts as she turned from the lift and retired to her office to pour over the reports until the press conference that afternoon.

Never had Pansy detested a phrase so much as she was quickly growing to loathe ‘ _Miss Parkinson, what can you tell us about…_ ’

She stood with steadfast resilience, straight-backed and proud, with only a narrow podium as a buffer between her and the same questions the reporters volleyed at her repeatedly with small variation in wording. Fortunately, they all had roughly the same answer.

“The DMLE is handling this investigation with utmost care and urgency. We cannot comment on the details until we have thoroughly analyzed the available evidence.”

Shockingly, this answer wasn’t popular among the bloodhounds sent by the major news outlets. She met them with tight-lipped resistance until, at last, they moved on from scenting out the grisly details from the crime scene.

“Miss Parkinson,” the blonde reporter from _The Daily Prophet_ spoke up from the front row, her head a foot below the raised platform supporting Pansy and the rest of the gathered Ministry representatives, “is it possible this crime is tied to Death Eaters? The public wants to know: could He Who Must Not Be Named return a second time?”

“We are examining all possible motives,” Pansy responded, unease coiling in the pit of her stomach at the glint she caught in the woman’s eye. “At this time, we have not recovered evidence of dark magic at the scene.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie.

Pansy motioned for an older man to speak, a representative from _The Quibbler_ , but the blonde woman cut in before he could ask his question.

“Is it true that your father is currently serving time in Azkaban on charges of domestic terrorism?”

Her mouth slackened in surprise, then shut with such force that her molars ground together. The headline flashed in Pansy’s mind like a theater marquee: _Death Eater Leads Potter Homicide Investigation_.

“That isn’t relevant.”

“Is it not?” The woman’s face opened in exaggerated surprise. “If this murder can be attributed to Death Eaters, is it not a conflict of interest-“

“Let me be clear.” Pansy’s tone boldened and grew in force. From her podium, she loomed over the woman. She swept her eyes across the gathered group of reporters to impress this verity upon them. “Harry Potter was the finest Auror this department has ever seen. I consider myself fortunate to have served our community alongside him for fifteen years. He was a good father—a pillar of this community—and a decent man. Beyond that, he was my friend, and I intend to see to it that his killer is brought to justice. It is my sworn duty, and I swear my service and dedication to this office before you again now.”

Her eyes landed upon the Prophet reporter again, in them a silent challenge that the woman did not rise to meet. And so, the conference resumed, though Pansy’s heart did not stop its stuttered irregularity until she stepped off the platform. Somehow, she’d weathered the first band of clouds in the upcoming media storm. This was mild, just showy flashes of heat lightning before the real thing hit, but she would take this small victory and carry it forth to shield her when the deluge began in earnest.

By the time she pushed open the door to her one bedroom flat, it was past dark, but she made no move to light the flat’s old-fashioned gas lamps. The thought of any light—even the soft, muted yellows the lamps would have provided—made her eyes want to scream. Instead, she waved her wand toward the window in the living area to draw aside the curtain. Moonlight filtered in, providing just enough light to see by that she didn’t knock into any furniture as she came through.

She made straight for the kitchen. With practiced movements, she produced in sequence: a glass from an upper cabinet, a single wedge of ice from the icebox, and an unopened bottle of whiskey from the well-stocked liquor cabinet against the far wall. She might have been more generous with her pour (Merlin knew she’d earned it), but the Minister’s warning guided her hand to temperance. A hangover tomorrow morning would as good as guarantee her termination.

“You might’ve waited,” Pansy addressed the bottle of Ogden’s Old. Harry had gifted it to her following her promotion, though of course she hadn’t properly appreciated the gesture then. Not when he had been her only competition for the position. Not when she knew he deserved it more and had declined the nomination, leaving her the default choice. Not when they had both known she would only ever be second best.

“Ten years and we’d both be retired. It wouldn’t be my mess. You always did have to make life difficult for the rest of us, didn’t you?” She hefted the bottle into her left hand and slowly tipped it sideways to pour a healthy amount straight down the drain of her kitchen sink. “Cheers.”

Pansy raised her own glass in a toast and drank.

As tired as she was, she couldn’t sit still. She wandered the length of her tiny flat, glass in hand, tidying as she went. It was already clean, and so spartan, so ruthlessly utilitarian, that ‘cleaning’ really meant moving the single decorative throw pillow she owned to the opposite end of the love seat and tossing into the bin two empty inkwells she found in her bottom desk drawer. When she had run out of tasks to do, she simply stood in the center of her living room, gaze soft upon the darkened fireplace and gripped with listlessness which always went hand-in-hand with whiskey.

She was about to return her glass to the kitchen and head to bed when a thought collided with her consciousness so forcefully, it almost knocked her right down. Instantly, the mental fog cleared, leaving the air sharp as it flooded her senses. A copy of the crime scene report rested on the kitchen counter where she’d left it. Pansy swept it up and read over Pike’s detailed account for what must have been the hundredth time. Why hadn’t it occurred to her until now? She skipped past the descriptions of the body and its placement, down to his notes on the study itself.

A fire. There had been a fire burning when they’d arrived on the scene. No one needed a fire to keep warm in July. With Oggen already gone home for the night hours before and Ginny not expected home for days yet, why keep the fire lit? Then there was that second chair, the plain one pulled up to the desk, and the powder on the floor she’d taken for Floo powder in the dim light but may well have been soot.

“Who were you expecting, Potter?” she asked, lifting her eyes again to the bottle on her counter as though it might, in all its wisdom, bestow upon her an answer. It remained stoically silent, mocking her from the countertop.

The questions plagued her all the way to bed. Who had Harry invited into his home after a long day of work? Had he known the person who would go on to be his killer? Did he willingly ingest the paralysis potion, or did someone—the visitor, potentially his friend—dose him surreptitiously?

She squeezed her eyes shut against them all, though they circled like vultures around her wired mind, picking and plucking her from slumber each time she slipped beneath the surface.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy has a pest problem and learns of a new complication to the case.

“I need to come home for a few days.”

The words came out stilted, grudging, as though even as she spoke, Pansy tried to keep them locked behind walls of enamel. The rigid leather chair was unyielding as she rested her back against it. It wasn’t meant to be comfortable. In fact, it was much the opposite; intended to remind guests of their status while visiting the Parkinson family estate.

On the softer settee across from Pansy’s stiff-backed seat, her mother regarded her with acute interest. Subdued amusement pressed at the corners of her mouth. “Oh?”

Tension wound tighter in Pansy’s jaw, an automatic response to her mother’s saccharine tone. “If it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

“Don’t be silly; this is your home. Of course you can stay. I can’t say I’m surprised,” Tenatia confided, like they were sharing a delightful conspiracy just between the two of them. “That box you call a flat was bound to lose its novelty one day. I did hope it would happen sooner, but you’ve always been so willful. Thirty-nine, for Merlin’s sake, and still living like… Well, never mind. Shall I send an elf to help you pack? Would just one be enough? You can’t have that many things in that hatbox you call a—“

“Just a few days.” Pansy cut her off. “While I sort out a… pest problem. I don’t need an elf, Mother. Just a bed.”

“Pests?” Tenatia’s expression took on a sudden pallor. She eyed Pansy like she thought she might be harboring a clan of Doxies beneath her robes. “Is it… _Chizpurfles_?” Her voice lowered to a whisper, making the word itself sound dirty. “You know, the Bulstrodes had an infestation last year. They’re extremely hard to be rid of, and so embarrassing to have to call out the DRMC. Of course, the Bulstrodes didn’t want anyone to find out about _their_ problem, but I heard from…”

Pansy allowed her mother’s account of the gossip train to wash over her like a wave of tepid bathwater. It didn’t matter two twits to Pansy whether her mother thought she had an infestation of Chizpurfles in her flat, and it seemed she’d already decided that it was so. If Tenatia was happy to imagine it, Pansy was glad to let her. Her eyelids felt heavy, the tea proving ineffective against her current state of exhaustion.

The ‘pests’ in question were decidedly more human than crustacean. She had awoken this morning before dawn to the sound of tapping at her bedroom window. A moon-faced barn owl stared back at her from the ledge. Drowsy but thinking the correspondence might have come from one of her team, she opened the window and took the roll of parchment from the owl’s leg.

An invitation to appear on The Morning Brew, a talkshow which aired live every morning on the W.W.N. The owl returned to the station well-fed and carrying a curt refusal.

Pansy returned to bed.

It had been the first of many owls that morning. Papers both local and national—even international, in the case of a peregrine falcon delivering an inquiry from _The New York Ghost_ —sent them out in droves. All of them wanting an update, or a comment, or an interview. All of them knowing she couldn’t give any of the three, but asking anyway. How they’d gotten her address, she didn’t know, but somehow the information had made its rounds. As it stood, her flat was currently under fire. The thought of going back raised a roiling sense of dread in her stomach.

“…Pansy? Dear, are you quite alright? You’re looking piqued.”

She blinked, then raised a hand to pinch at the bridge of her nose. Perhaps the glazed-over look was more obvious than she thought. “Just tired. I’m sorry, I really should go.” It was only lunch-time and there was so much more to do. “I’ll bring my things by tonight.”

Tenatia stood with her and swept in to embrace Pansy in that strange way of hers—not quite touching her anywhere, just a light hand pressed to her shoulder blades and the sharp angle of her chin upon her neck. Pansy endured it with practiced rigidity, only relaxing once her mother pulled away.

“Don’t eat before you come home,” Tenatia told her, her finger nudging beneath Pansy’s chin. For a breath, Pansy was six years old. She twitched her head to the side and her mother’s hand fell away. “We’ll have dinner together, won’t that be nice? It does get so lonely here with only the elves for company.”

“Mother.” A warning. They locked eyes for a long moment, held fast in a silent standoff.

“I’m only saying what’s true. With you in London and your father-“

“Please.” Pansy’s eyebrows pushed together, entreating.

Tenatia waved a delicate hand toward the fireplace. A jade box responded to her call, floating away from the mantle to come rest in her waiting hands.

“Dinner,” she reminded, and allowed Pansy to take a handful of Floo powder from inside. “At eight. Don’t be late.”

Pike was waiting outside her office when she returned. She took one look at his expression and knew that whatever he had to tell her, she wasn’t going to like it.

“You’re early,” she commented as she let them into the room. They were due for a meeting later in the afternoon to touch base with the rest of their team and go over the details of the case. Pike had been on interview duty this morning, beginning with Ginny Potter. “Have you finished your interviews already?”

He ignored her question. “I wanted to warn you.”

“Of?” Pansy tried to channel some of her mother’s effortless nonchalance, but to even her own ears it sounded short.

“The family’s decided on a change of plans for Harry’s birthday celebration. Turning it into a celebration of life, at Ginny’s parents’.”

Pansy nodded. “Sensible. We’ll attend, of course.“

“The Minister’s wanting you to have an arrest made.”

“Yes, well, we’d all like that, wouldn’t we?” she scoffed, and Pike closed the door behind them. When she turned to look, there was a seriousness in his eyes that made her pause in the middle of pulling out her chair. “You can’t mean he wants…?”

“Before the ceremony.”

Pansy sat down, her body leaden with the impact of this news. Her eyes traveled to the calendar. Thursday, 25th July. “His birthday is the 31st. That’s only six days.”

“Five,” came Pike’s somber correction, “as they’ll be wanting to give a speech the day of.”

For an ordinary homicide, five days wouldhave been plenty of time—more than they needed. Not many murders crossed their desks these days, but those that did usually had immediate suspects with clear motives and transparent alibis. In the first twenty-four hours, they usually had a suspect in mind. After forty-eight: arrest made, paperwork filed, home in time for dinner.

The trouble was, this was no ordinary case. There was no _Avada Kedavra_ cast, no wand to inspect, no suspect to link to the scene. Not yet. Someone of Potter’s fame and notoriety was bound to have a laundry list of enemies, even for all the societal services he’d performed. A larger suspect pool meant a vast number of interviews, alibi checks… It would take time.

“He’s mad,” Pansy decided. “He was head of this department. He _knows_ what he’s asking of me. Us,” she corrected as an afterthought.

“Herculean tasks.”

“What’s that?” A frown creased Pansy’s brow.

“Like the myth.”

Pansy sucked in a breath, straightened her spine, and made a show of taking down a stack of reports from her review tray. Her heart was racing, but she didn’t permit her shaken nerves to show on her face. That she didn’t know what myth Pike was on about didn’t matter, not really, but just now it was one more hole in her increasingly threadbare patchwork quilt of ability.

“Thank you for the warning.” Her eyes lifted from the reports. “Leave me. Finish your interviews and we’ll— We’ll work out an action plan at the meeting.”

Pike’s left eyebrow raised at her stutter. A query formed upon his lips but didn’t make it past inception. He caught the look in her eye, thought better of asking whatever question he had in mind, and excused himself.

Alone, Pansy’s eyes glazed over. Looking at the lines of Archer’s writing, she was only able to pick out every other word from the page. The remaining letters fit themselves together in a mismatched jigsaw in her mind, lost in translation from page to eye.Five days. Five days to solve the biggest homicide investigation since… No, the biggest homicide investigation, full-stop. She slumped back in her chair and let out the sigh she’d repressed in Pike’s presence.

Kingsley Shacklebolt had lost his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation continues on a time crunch.

The meeting room had never been intended to hold more than five people, much less half their department. Extension charms could only do so much and did not account for the heady scent of of stress combined with impractical cloaks and the oppressive heatwave—Summer’s last hurrah. To the credit of her team, no one complained. Not even as they went over the case in excruciating detail, or when Pansy made them walk through it again.

And again.

And again, until they had filled a corkboard with what they knew and the questions without answers. Their timeline provided an uncomfortably large window: Oggen left at 8 p.m. on the 23rd. Harry died at 2:30 a.m. the next morning, with Oggen returning to find him around 4:00 a.m. and sending out the emergency owl. So much could happen in six hours.

“At least Ginny’s alibi checks out,” Archer said from her place at the long table, where she was sandwiched in between Pike and Wilson. “She was with her team and they’ve all said they saw her that night when they went to bed. That was at eleven.”

“We can’t discount her,” Pansy countered. “She was alone in her tent until she got my owl. Seeing her before bed doesn’t account for the three and a half hours between then and the murder.”

“Scotland’s ages away by broom.”

“And fireplaces don’t exist? Perhaps Mrs. Potter didn’t pass her Apparation exam, so that’s out the window, too.” Archer did have a romantic’s heart. Pansy couldn’t fault her for wanting to eliminate Ginny from the suspect list. They all wanted that, but they couldn’t afford idealism making their work shoddy. “She got here quick enough when I owled her. An hour, maybe less. That’s plenty of time for her to get home, commit the crime, and return to her retreat. So, no, we can’t absolve her yet.”

Archer cast her eyes to the table.

“What about Granger?” Pansy asked, gaze traveling around the gathered group. Granger had known of Harry’s death before any announcement, which continued to bother her now as much as it had the previous day.

“Department logs say she arrived here at two. Didn’t leave again until yesterday afternoon at lunchtime,” said Pike.

Pansy’s eyebrows raised. “Two in the morning?”

“Not unusual.” He flipped back through a few pages of the department’s logbook. “Happens a lot toward the end of the week, from the looks of it. She takes a half day, Thursdays and Fridays.”

Systematically, they went through the rest of their suspect list, eliminating almost all of Potter’s immediate and extended family. The perk of there being so many Weasleys was that they all kept good track of one another. Next, they examined the components of the Rogers case—an investigation of a London-based illegal gambling ring which made its profits from dragon-fighting (also highly illegal)—but all major players, under surveillance by MLE, could be accounted for at the time of the murder.

It was time to widen the pool.

“Let’s look beyond the family. What have we learned about potential enemies? People who would wish him harm?”

“Seems like he’d have a lot of them,” Mulberry said slowly, scratching his head.

“We’re looking at anyone who has Death Eater ties,” Pansy confirmed. “Anyone who might be holding a grudge.”

Mulberry had taken on a look of consternation, which often happened when he had something to say. He would get there in his own time. Pansy gestured toward him, offering the floor to speak. “What about that Death Eater, whatsisname? Avery? Escaped during transport a few months ago.”

Pansy nodded. “It’s a possibility. Contact his family. They won’t take kindly to us poking our noses in their business again, but take some muscle with you and they shouldn’t give you trouble. They’ve been cooperative in the past.” Avery’s family had given him up, after the war. He had not been one of the many who claimed to be under the Imperius Curse. Like her father, his loyalty to the Dark Lord had not wavered in the face of penance.

“What about school?” Archer piped up again. When Pansy’s eyes landed on her, she stammered, “Maybe that’s stupid. I know it’s been years, but— I mean, people do hold grudges.” A pink blush bloomed around her ears, as though she might have firsthand experience. “Children can be so awful to one another.”

It was worth looking into, Pansy had to admit. Her own time at Hogwarts remained fresh in her memory as if it had occurred last week and not decades before. She nodded.

“We’ll need a list of students who disliked him,” Archer continued quickly. Now that her suggestion hadn’t been shot down, she seemed to have regained some confidence.“I can-“

“I’ll handle that.” Pansy kept her face neutral with the offer. They needn’t know that her group of friends at the time would fill out a good portion of that list. Archer looked like she might object. “You and Mulberry can handle the Averys together.”

“Has Creevey finished with the crime scene photos?” Pike set aside his logbook with impatience.

In truth, Pansy thought Creevey would be present at the meeting. He was probably the only person on their payroll missing from the sardine tin. The memo had arrived just before the meeting’s start time: _Sorry, won’t be at meeting. Still developing. Knock first._

“Not yet, but by this afternoon. I’ll collect them after we’re done here and work on that list for you, Archer.”

“Man’s a fuckin’ turtle,” Mulberry grunted, the irony of his gripe completely lost upon him.

Creevey could be slow, but he was also meticulous. The quality of his work was unparalleled in their department. There was a reason she’d summoned him outside his ordinary work hours to photograph the scene.

“What was that, Mulberry?”

He grunted again in answer, which Pansy took to mean he didn’t feel the need to comment any further.

Good.

So, she opened the discussion to questions and outlined as best she could how they would divide and conquer the growing list of interested parties. Not soon enough for any of them, the meeting broke. Level two was soon flooded with aurors and MLE officers alike as they set to task working against an impossible deadline. They would have to _make_ it possible.

Pansy lingered, eyes roving over their evidence board, and hoped their efforts would be enough.

The canteen’s coffee smelled like Bubotuber pus more often than not, but it didn’t need to be pleasant; just effective. Pansy shelled out a few knuts for a cup, stirred in a few spoons of sugar, and as she lifted the cup to her lips, spotted someone headed toward the door. Coffee all but forgotten, she hurried to catch up.

“Granger!”

Granger, on her way out of the canteen, paused upon hearing her name. She held a mug of tea in one hand and an A4 binder in the other.

“Auror Parkinson. Do you have news?” Hope brimmed in her dark eyes, and Pansy almost felt bad for killing it.

“Not as such,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I was hoping you’d agree to speak with me, if you have a moment.”

This was how they wound up in Pansy’s office, Granger seated in the same chair Ginny had occupied the previous day. Pansy’s desk, normally in perfect order, had taken on some of the chaos in her life. Of course _she_ understood what each separate stack of papers was for, but she could feel Granger’s eyes drifting from her face to the desk with some muddled mixture of horror and thinly-veiled curiosity.

Pansy straightened a few of her stacks and pulled out her case notes. She found a new page.

“I have some questions for you.”

“I’ve already been questioned about my whereabouts. I was here,” she gestured to the room around them, “all night. Auror Pike has the logbook which confirms it, or at least I think so. He took it.”

“Pike has covered that already,” Pansy agreed. “I’d like you to tell me how you knew.”

Granger’s brows furrowed in question.

“The morning I spoke to Mrs. Potter,” Pansy went on, “you came crashing into my office-“

“I hardly crashed.”

“You would’ve taken the door down if I’d had the sense to lock it.”

They locked eyes, Pansy daring her to deny it and Granger understanding that she couldn’t.

“Well, I’d have knocked first.”

Pansy laughed, a sound that surprised her as much as it surprised Granger. “All right,” she agreed. She leaned back in her chair, which creaked in its old age. Her cup of coffee, largely ornamental at this point, balanced on her hip with her hand holding it in place by the lid. “But set the scene for me. You were here, working. Then, you ‘entered’ my office. What happened in between? How did you come to know about the murder?”

“I go for walks,” Granger said. “Just around the atrium, to get a change of scenery.” Pansy watched her tuck a flyaway curl behind her ear. “It was impossible not to notice that something was wrong. People started coming through the Floo, one after the other, talking in hushed voices. The coroner’s assistant came through with one of your officers. He’s never in that early. They were talking on their way to the lift and I heard Harry’s name.”

So much for discretion.

“And you happened to overhear?”

Granger’s cheeks reddened. “I might have followed them.” Something in Pansy’s expression prompted her to add, with impertinence, “It’s not a crime! I work here, too. Will you _please_ stop that?”

Without realizing it, Pansy had been thumbing the lid of her cup, the plastic crackling with the movement. She met Granger’s eyes in acknowledgment and in an exaggerated movement, set the cup on her desk between them.

Granger’s eyes slipped gratefully closed. “ _Thank you_.”

“What happened next?”

Her eyes opened again. “I didn’t want to believe it, at first. I didn’t, actually. I went back to my office and told myself I should just keep working, but then I thought if it _was_ true, you’d be the one to ask. Everyone was talking about it in the Auror office. They shut up when they saw me, of course, but-“

“You’d already heard,” Pansy finished. “I see.” She made the note, striking through the question hitherto left unanswered.

Granger’s silence struck Pansy as uncharacteristic. She looked up to find her crying. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks. One slid off the curve of her chin to fall into her mug of tea. Pansy reached for her tissue box again and offered it to her.

“Thank you.” The woman’s voice was small. She blew her nose noisily. “Is there something else I can do? I feel so useless. They’ve told me I should just go home, take time, but how can I? It’s just, I’ve always-“ Her mouth wavered. “I’ve always helped Harry. It feels like it’s all I’ve done, since we were little. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to help him now.”

This admission caught Pansy off-guard. Something stirred in her chest—was it envy? She had never known such loyalty. Even after his death, Granger wanted to help Potter one last time.

The proper answer to Granger’s question would be a placation. To anyone else, she would have given it, that same rehearsed line she’d given to grieving spouses and friends: ’ _You can help him best by taking care of yourself now_. _Why don’t you go home?_ ’

“You can help me compile a list of enemies Harry had at school,” she said instead. With a gentle tear, she tugged a sheaf of paper from her notebook. It joined her coffee on the desk. Pansy set a self-inking quill down atop it, its golden-brown pheasant feather curled toward Granger. “You’d know better than me, I think.”

For a moment, Hermione didn’t move to take the quill. Pansy watched in quiet fascination as she blotted the tissue against her cheeks. The tears stopped. Her chin stilled, and with a deep breath, her face began to regain its composure with a renewed sense of duty.Again, her brown eyes lifted to Pansy’s. In them, Pansy saw the gratitude she did not express.

Then, in a swift motion, she took up the quill, bent her head over the page, and began to write.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy retrieves the crime scene photos from Dennis Creevey and gets an unexpected request.

Following her impromptu meeting with Granger, Pansy spent the next hour gathering information on the people she’d listed as possible enemies. As she had suspected, a large portion of them formed what she would have considered her inner circle in the ‘90s. She still had contact with a few of them, but others required a bit of research to locate as the chaotic nature of life’s road had led them across the country, or the world. Mercifully, the list was succinct. If she got an early start tomorrow, she thought it would go quickly.

First, she had to collect the photographs from Creevey.

When she knocked twice on the door to the department’s small dark room, a harrowed voice called from inside, “A moment, please!”

Beyond the door, Pansy heard Creevey working to protect his developing film from the light she would let into the room upon entry. A scrape, a click, and finally, the door opened. Creevey squinted into the hall and passed the back of his hand across his face. Red light pooled at their feet, spilling from the doorway behind him. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s delicate work.” Pansy stepped through the door as Creevey stepped back to admit her. “And tedious, I take it.”

“Yes,” Creevey said, “well.” He looked to the floor, hands shoved into the pockets of his robe. “Best to be thorough. I am sorry about the meeting, but you’re just in time, actually. I’ve just finished these.” His hand swept to the side, leading Pansy’s gaze to a long string along the opposite wall.

It bowed in the middle, weighted by a host of photographs from the crime scene. Instantly, Pansy felt many pairs of eyes upon her, all of them glassy and vacant, all of them Harry’s.

All of them dead.

Creevey had taken photograph after photograph of the body, from different angles and distances. In one, Harry’s eyes took up the entire sheet of paper they were printed on. She must have looked as disturbed as she felt, because he cleared his throat next to her.

“It’s not excessive, is it? I thought it would be important, seeing everything. I didn’t want to miss anything.” Apprehension turned his tone querulous.

“No,” Pansy said, too quickly. She took a breath. “No, it isn’t excessive. Thorough, as you ought to be.”

In her years working with the Auror department, Pansy had seen her fair share of crime scene photographs. Her stomach wasn’t quite made of steel, but it had a solid lining and wasn’t easily turned. Even so, she found herself wanting to move on quickly from the photos of Harry’s wan face; those eyes that kept searching for her in vain, in the dark.

“Right, then.” Creevey turned from her. “I’ll gather up the dry ones for you.”

She nodded, and Dennis busied himself with taking those from the wall. Pansy wandered down to another station at the far end of the room where she spotted a few more photos hanging up.

Seeing them up close, she sucked in a sharp breath of surprise.

Once more, Harry’s eyes met hers. These crinkled at the corners in a smile that did not quite manage to reach his mouth. He wore Gryffindor robes and only a shadow of the future’s weight upon his scrawny shoulders. In this picture, he couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. As she watched, his small hand rose and gave the camera a half-hearted wave. Then, the smile faded from his face and the short cycle began anew.

“What are you doing?” Creevey abruptly appeared beside her, his voice harsh as he stepped between her and the photographs.

“I could ask the same. We’re on a deadline,” she reminded him. “Or have you forgotten?”

Tension squared off Creevey’s ordinarily soft jaw, and she waited expectantly for him to explain.

For a moment, she wasn’t certain he would. He looked like he’d rather do anything else. A muscle jumped beneath his right ear, but then he gave a slow, metered exhale. The red light played off the planes of his freckled cheeks.

“My brother took them.”

A face floated to the forefront of Pansy’s memory, young and wide-eyed. She’d forgotten Creevey had a brother, but recalled now that he’d died at Hogwarts, one of the student casualties in the battle during which she’d suggested they barter Harry Potter for the Dark Lord’s mercy.

The only one to suggest it.

Her silence prompted Creevey to continue. He turned toward the photos, his expression pensive, distant. “I know we’re on a tight schedule,” he said, “but I found these rolls of film last night, and I thought Ginny might like them for the ceremony. Forgive me, Auror Parkinson, if that’s unprofessional.”

Dennis’ eyes cut to her. Pansy thought of Potter’s widow, of that strength she clung to so desperately when she’d walked into her office, and could not bring herself to reprimand Creevey for remembering his own humanity in this moment. Perhaps she would do well to remember hers.

She swallowed, and nodded once. “It’s kind, Creevey.” In a rare gesture of comfort, she rested a hand on his arm. “But you’ll do her a better service to help us catch the man who did it. She’ll appreciate these more when she can rest easy knowing her husband’s killer is put away in Azkaban.”

He glanced down to her hand briefly, but his eyes rose once more to the pictures. Pansy joined him in watching a younger Harry smile and wave at the camera, and the doomed boy beyond it.

“I think he’d have wanted her to have them.”

As she watched the ghostly smile fade away again, Pansy thought Creevey was probably right.

Back in the meeting room once again, Pansy sat in the same chair she’d occupied during the case meeting, one foot braced on the seat opposite, and stared at the corkboard. She had already added copies of the pertinent photos from the scene, hoping that perhaps they would make the thing appear more whole. Instead, she found it somehow more difficult to concentrate, her attention span falling through the gaping holes in the web of their narrative. Wherever she looked, each time she blinked, Harry’s eyes haunted her from the dark.

Pansy had worked in this trade long enough to know that she needed to take a break. Words had lost all meaning hours ago, and she could come at this with renewed energy tomorrow. The trick was getting to tomorrow. Getting to tomorrow meant leaving. Leaving meant going home, to her empty flat, and then going home, to her family’s empty estate.

_‘Don’t be late.’_

So, she sat in the empty meeting room, thinking of Harry Potter’s empty eyes, and let the afternoon dwindle around her out of spite.

She didn’t hear a knock, but perhaps Granger thought herself above knocking when she thought she had a right to enter. The door to the meeting room pushed open, and Pansy snapped shut the folder of photos resting in her lap.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

Granger ignored that. “I came to see whether there was anything else I could help you with before I left for the day.” She didn’t bother to hide her open curiosity. Her dark eyes looked beyond Pansy, to the corkboard with all its notes and photographs.

Pansy stood to block her view, her height giving her just enough edge to obscure the center of the board from Granger’s prying eyes. “We’ve got it handled, Granger,” she said, not unkindly.

“I can see that.” Granger nodded past her with a dubious look. “No principal suspects so far, no murder weapon?”

“Which is none of your concern.” Pansy crossed her arms and did her best to become mountainous, unmovable. This stance had proven effective against even the staunchest of Aurors, but did not seem to phase Granger in the slightest. Her mouth pressed into a tight, stubborn line as she stared Pansy down in turn.

Clearly, she believed it _was_ her concern.

Pansy waited for her to protest, but instead, this. “Come and have a drink with me.”

“I’m-" _sorry_ , but that wasn’t right. “What?”

“You need it, and I need to do _something_ or I’ll go mad sitting at home knowing you haven’t even got a suspect.”

“I don’t need it,” said Pansy, drawing her arms up stiffly.

“Your eyes are bloodshot, and I’d bet you haven’t slept hardly at all since yesterday. You’re right; you don’t need a drink. You need to sleep, but as I’m sure there are countless items on your mental ‘to-do’ list that take priority, you won’t, so you might as well come and have a drink, and we can talk more about that list I wrote you.” Under Pansy’s defensive gaze, Granger’s expression softened.

“I know what it’s like to be overworked,” she finished. “Do this for yourself, or for Harry, if you won’t.”

Pansy’s upper lip lifted a fraction as she thought to suggest that going to a pub could hardly help Harry Potter where he was now—not when she ought to be helping him by solving his murder, as she’d said to Creevey—but something about the look Granger gave her stopped the snappy retort in its tracks. What would Harry have wanted?

The answer was clear. Granger had admitted herself that she’d spent much of her youth helping Harry in one way or another.

He would have wanted someone to be there, to help her, and this was her way of asking for it.

Pansy turned to slide the photographs and reports into her briefcase. It clicked shut, punctuating the break in her own resolve. “One drink,” she said with a glance in Granger’s direction, “on the condition that you don’t ask me any questions about this case outside what pertains to that list.”

“But maybe-“

“Granger. I appreciate that you want to help, but this,” she gestured to the corkboard, “is my job. And if you try to do my job, if you get too close to this, you’ll see things you won’t be able to unsee. For Harry’s sake as much as yours, I can’t allow it.”

She could tell from the stiffness in Granger’s body that she didn’t like it, but with a grudging nod, she knew the other woman heard and understood.

“There’s a pub near my flat. Come along, Granger. Drinks are on the department tonight.”

When she doused the gas lamps in the meeting room, the darkness did not watch her on the way out.


End file.
